fc_judgments: 96

Data source: lawnet.sg/lawnet/web/lawnet/free-resources

This data as json

_id	_item_id	tags	date	court	case-number	title	citation	url	counsel	timestamp	coram	html	_commit
96	6b41ebe15be40a78bea1fde2c0dfa61d7d9128e9	[ "Family Law \u2013 Divorce" ]	2024-10-29	Family Court	Divorce No 3563 of 2022	XDH v XDI	[2024] SGFC 80	https://www.lawnet.sg:443/lawnet/web/lawnet/free-resources?p_p_id=freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet&p_p_lifecycle=1&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&_freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet_action=openContentPage&_freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet_docId=%2FJudgment%2F32401-SSP.xml	[ "Thian Wen Yi and Charis Sim Wei Li(Harry Elias Partnership LLP) for the plaintiff", "Shen Luda Genesis (Pointer LLC) for the defendant." ]	2024-11-05T16:00:00Z[GMT]	Patrick Tay Wei Sheng	<root><head><title>XDH v XDI</title></head><content><div class="contentsOfFile"> <h2 align="center" class="title"><span class="caseTitle"> XDH <em>v</em> XDI </span><br><span class="Citation offhyperlink"><a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/32401-SSP.xml')">[2024] SGFC 80</a></span></h2><table id="info-table"><tbody><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Case Number</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">Divorce No 3563 of 2022</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Decision Date</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">29 October 2024</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Tribunal/Court</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">Family Court</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Coram</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> Patrick Tay Wei Sheng </td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Counsel Name(s)</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> Thian Wen Yi and Charis Sim Wei Li(Harry Elias Partnership LLP) for the plaintiff; Shen Luda Genesis (Pointer LLC) for the defendant. </td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Parties</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> XDH — XDI </td></tr></tbody></table> <p class="txt-body"><span style="font-style:italic">Family Law</span> – <span style="font-style:italic">Divorce</span></p> <p></p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td width="80%"><p class="Judg-Hearing-Date">29 October 2024</p></td><td><p class="Judg-Date-Reserved"></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p> <p class="Judg-Author"> District Judge Patrick Tay Wei Sheng:</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_1"></a>1 The parties were spouses. They had a child, who was nine years of age. They fell out and filed for divorce. Interim judgment of divorce was granted in January 2023. I divided the matrimonial assets 75:25 in favour of the husband, granted the husband the sole care and control of the child, and granted the wife generous access to the child.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_2"></a>2 The wife has filed an appeal against these decisions. I now provide my reasons for them.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Background</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_3"></a>3 The husband was a citizen of Romania and a permanent resident of Singapore. The wife was a citizen of Singapore. They married in 2013 and had the child in 2015. Apart from a year between 2017 and 2018, when the family moved to Europe, the family lived in Singapore throughout the marriage. After the family returned to Singapore in 2018, they lived in rented apartments. At the time of these proceedings, the matrimonial home was a rented apartment in the east of Singapore.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_4"></a>4 In July 2022, the relationship between the spouses broke down. The spouses began sleeping in separate bedrooms even as they continued to reside in the matrimonial home. They split their time with the child on the weekends, with the husband having the care of the child on Saturdays and the wife having the care of the child on Sundays. But the matrimonial relationship deteriorated further, and the spouses commenced divorce proceedings in August 2022. They split their time with the child further: each parent had the care of the child on alternate days.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_5"></a>5 In December 2022, the spouses agreed to share the custody of the child following their divorce. This agreement was recorded as a consent order of the Family Court.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_1" id="Ftn_1_1"><sup>[note: 1]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_6"></a>6 In January 2023, interim judgment of divorce was granted on the facts that each spouse had behaved in ways that made it unreasonable to expect the other spouse to continue to live with him or her.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_7"></a>7 In July 2023, the wife moved out of the matrimonial home and took the child with her. They moved into another apartment within the same residential development as the matrimonial home. The husband continued to live in the matrimonial home.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Division of matrimonial assets</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_8"></a>8 A court in dividing matrimonial assets was tasked with justly and equitably apportioning the economic fruits of the marriage between the former spouses (see <em>VIG v VIH</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/25105-SSP.xml')">[2020] SGHCF 16</a> at [35]). In discharging that task, the court would first identify the assets (and liabilities) that constituted the pool of matrimonial assets then value those assets (and liabilities) to determine the economic fruits of the marriage. Having done so, the court would divide these economic fruits between the spouses based on their financial and non-financial contributions to the marriage, in line with the philosophy that marriage was an equal partnership (see <em>TNL v TNK and another appeal and another matter</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/20138-SSP.xml')">[2017] 1 SLR 609</a> (“<em>TNL v TNK</em>”) at [45]). To give effect to that philosophy, “mutual respect must be accorded for spousal contributions, whether in the economic or homemaking spheres, as both roles are equally fundamental to the well-being of a marital partnership” (see <em>ANJ v ANK</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/17925-SSP.xml')">[2015] 4 SLR 1043</a> (“<em>ANJ v ANK</em>”) at [17]).</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-2">Identification of matrimonial assets</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_9"></a>9 Here, there were no assets that were held by the spouses jointly. The only relevant assets (and liabilities) were thus those that were held by each spouse solely in his or her name (or jointly with non-parties to the marriage). I list these assets and the positions of each spouse on the values of these assets.</p> <table align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="Judg-2-tblr" frame="all" pgwide="1"><colgroup><col width="61.26%"><col width="19.36%"><col width="19.38%"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1"> </p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="center" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Husband’s Value</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="center" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Wife’s Value</b> </p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="b" colspan="3" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Assets in name of Husband</b> </p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Central Provident Fund savings</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">313,514</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">313,514</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">DBS account</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">239</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">2,039</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">OCBC (Bonus+) account</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">129,339</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">129,734</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">OCBC (others) account </p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">4,830</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">4,830</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">TD Ameritrade account</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">603.66</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">USD450</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Dorman Trading account</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">353</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">USD263</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Interactive Brokers accounts</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">818</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">USD42</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Great Eastern insurance policy</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">5,932</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">5,932</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Sub-Total</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>455,629</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>457,830</b> </p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="b" colspan="3" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Assets in name of Wife</b> </p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Central Provident Fund savings</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">3,661</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">3,661</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">DBS account </p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">55,452</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">39,070</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">DBS account (jointly held with mother)</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">7,980</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">0</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Watches</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">4,721</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">0</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="justify" class="Table-Para-1">Debt (to aunt)</p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">0</p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1">-100,000</p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Sub-Total</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="br" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>71,815</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="b" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>-57,269</b> </p> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" class="r" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>Grand Total</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="r" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>527,444</b> </p> </td><td align="left" class="" rowspan="1" valign="top"> <p align="right" class="Table-Para-1"> <b>400,561</b> </p> </td></tr></tbody></table><br clear="left"><br clear="left"> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_10"></a>10 Based on these submissions, there were four main areas of disagreement between the spouses. These were as follow:</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_10-p2_a"></a>(a) the value of the husband’s DBS and OCBC (Bonus+) accounts and wife’s DBS account that were in each of their sole names;</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_10-p2_b"></a>(b) the status of the wife’s DBS account that she held jointly with her mother and the value of the account if it was a matrimonial asset;</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_10-p2_c"></a>(c) the status of the wife’s watches and the value of the watches if they were matrimonial assets; and</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_10-p2_d"></a>(d) the status of the wife’s debt to her aunt and the value of the liability if it was a matrimonial liability.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-3">Bank accounts in sole names of husband and wife</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_11"></a>11 The divergence between the spouses over the value of the bank accounts concerned the date on which those bank accounts were valued. The husband valued those bank accounts as of the date of the interim judgment (<em>ie</em>, January 2023). The wife valued those bank accounts as of the date of these proceedings on the ancillary matters (<em>ie</em>, April 2024).</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_12"></a>12 In <em>VQF v VQG</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/30984-SSP.xml')">[2024] SGHCF 4</a> at [1], Choo Han Teck J observed that the date for ascertaining the pool of matrimonial assets was the date of the interim judgment, which dissolved the marriage. On the other hand, the date for valuing the assets and liabilities in that pool of matrimonial assets was typically the date of the hearing of the ancillary matters. Nevertheless, bank account balances and Central Provident Fund account balances were be valued as of the date of the interim judgment. For such money accounts, the economic fruits of the marriage were the monies in the accounts rather than the accounts themselves. The quantum of the monies that represented the fruits of the marriage crystallised at the date of the interim judgment, which dissolved the marriage. In consequence, except for run-of-the-mill expenses, sums expended by a spouse from these money accounts between the interim judgment and the hearing of the ancillary matters had to be returned to the pool of matrimonial assets if the other spouse had a putative interest in the monies and had not consented to the expenditure (see <em>TNL v TNK</em> at [24]). Specifically, a spouse was not entitled to use matrimonial money to fund his or her legal costs, which were not daily or run-of-the-mill expenses (see <em>WTS v WTR</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/32208-SSP.xml')">[2024] SGHCF 33</a> at [8]).</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_13"></a>13 I thus preferred the values put forward by the husband on these accounts: $239 for the DBS account in the name of the husband, $129,339 for the OCBC (Bonus+) account in the name of the husband, and $55,452 for the DBS account in the name of the wife. I also agreed with the husband that the matrimonial assets in his name had a value of $455,629.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-3">Joint account between wife and her mother</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_14"></a>14 The husband submitted a DBS bank account that the wife owned jointly with her mother and that had a balance of $7,980 as of the date of the interim judgment was a matrimonial asset. The wife did not deny the existence of this bank account but suggested that she had no beneficial interest in the monies therein and/or that her mother was the beneficial owner of those monies.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_15"></a>15 As a joint owner of the bank account, the wife was entitled to the undivided whole of the monies in that account. Those monies were thus matrimonial assets. Insofar as the wife asserted that she had no beneficial interest in the account, it was incumbent on her to obtain a determination from the civil courts to that effect because the Family Court was unable to adjudicate on a claim by a third party to a putative matrimonial asset (see <em>UDA v UDB and another</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/21828-SSP.xml')">[2018] 1 SLR 1015</a> at [44]). But there was no such determination before me. Nor was there any objective evidence to show that, despite her legal interest in the monies in the monies in that account, she had no beneficial interest in the monies in that account. I thus included that account in the pool of matrimonial assets and valued it at $7,980.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-3">Watches of wife</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_16"></a>16 The husband submitted that the wife owned two Longines watches and valued them at $4,721 based on their purchase prices. The wife did not dispute her ownership of these watches and did not offer any estimate of the value of these watches. The value of these watches, even if objectively modest, was not insubstantial relative to the value of the other matrimonial assets. I thus included these watches within the pool of matrimonial assets and valued them at $4,721.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-3">$100,000 debt of wife</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_17"></a>17 The wife submitted that she owed $100,000 to her aunt, which debt was a matrimonial liability that had to be included in the pool of matrimonial assets. She claimed that she had been compelled to borrow that sum in November 2022 because the husband had stopped maintaining her since February 2022. The husband disputed these claims.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_18"></a>18 The aunt deposed an affidavit in support of the claim that the wife had incurred a $100,000 matrimonial liability by borrowing that sum from her. The aunt added that she had loaned a total of $160,000 to the wife in two tranches: $100,000 on 17 November 2022 and $60,000 on 10 July 2023. The aunt exhibited a document dated 28 July 2023<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_2" id="Ftn_2_1"><sup>[note: 2]</sup></a></span> in which the wife “confirm[ed] and acknowledge[d]” a loan of $160,000 from the aunt. The aunt described this document as a “Debt Acknowledgement Note”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_3" id="Ftn_3_1"><sup>[note: 3]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_19"></a>19 I placed little weight on this affidavit. Although the affidavit exhibited a bank statement that recorded a $100,000 disbursement from the aunt to the wife on 17 November 2022, it contained no contemporaneous documentation of any liability on the part of the wife in respect of that disbursement. The Debt Acknowledgement Note, which was the only document that purported to record an obligation to repay that disbursement, was created only eight months later. This record was belated, convenient, and self-serving. The aunt deposed that she had not procured a formal “loan agreement” on or around 17 November 2022 because there had been a “common understanding” of repayment and because the wife was “family”. But this claim sat uneasily with her procurement of such a formal “loan agreement” after the subsequent $60,000 disbursement. Indeed, up until 10 July 2023, which was the date of that $60,000 disbursement, the correspondence between the wife and the aunt did not reflect any expectation of repayment of the $100,000 disbursement or the $60,000 disbursement.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_4" id="Ftn_4_1"><sup>[note: 4]</sup></a></span> Only on 28 July 2023, which was two weeks after the $60,000 disbursement did the wife sign the Debt Acknowledgement Note. It was thus unlikely that the $100,000 disbursement had created a liability on the part of the wife to the aunt. It was more likely that the $100,000 had been disbursed to the wife without any expectation of or obligation for its repayment.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_20"></a>20 The absence of detail beyond the Debt Acknowledgement Note on how and when the $100,000 disbursement was to be repaid reinforced this conclusion that it had been made without any obligation for its repayment. Moreover, the Debt Acknowledgement Note itself was equivocal on any such repayment obligation. Therein, the wife simply stated that the monies “will be repaid when my parents sell their current house and manage to get the cash on hand, or a partial repayment may be paid earlier by myself the moment I am able to do so.”<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_5" id="Ftn_5_1"><sup>[note: 5]</sup></a></span> Such an equivocal undertaking fell short of establishing a liability of $100,000 on the part of the wife to the aunt. I was thus unable to include any such liability in the pool of matrimonial assets.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-2">Valuation and division of matrimonial assets</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_21"></a>21 Given my findings above, the value of the matrimonial assets in the name of the husband was $455,629 while the value of the matrimonial assets in the name of the wife was $71,815. Accordingly, in the aggregate, the value of the pool of matrimonial assets was $527,444.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_22"></a>22 There was little dispute that for most of the marriage, the husband was the breadwinner while the wife was the homemaker. Further, the husband had given the wife a monthly allowance of $1,000 up until the wife found employment as a financial advisor in 2021.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_6" id="Ftn_6_1"><sup>[note: 6]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_23"></a>23 The wife admitted that the husband had financed the bulk of the matrimonial assets but claimed a 30% share of them based on her indirect contributions to their acquisition. She argued that pursuant to the structured approach in <em>ANJ v ANK</em>, the direct contributions were 100:0 in favour of the husband, the indirect contributions were 40:60 in favour of herself, and the final ratio was thus 70:30 in favour of the husband. She submitted in the alternative that insofar as the marriage was a single-income one and <em>ANJ v ANK</em> did not apply, she should receive 25–35% of the matrimonial assets on the authority of <em>TNL v TNK</em> and <em>BOR v BOS and another appeal</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/22441-SSP.xml')">[2018] SGCA 78</a> (“<em>BOR v BOS</em>”).</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_24"></a>24 The husband submitted that the matrimonial assets should be divided 80:20 in his favour. He explained that he had been more than just a breadwinner and had helped to care for the child while working a full-time job. He added that he had even taken on primary caregiving responsibilities in addition to his breadwinning role in the later years of the marriage, when the wife was focusing on embarking on a career in financial advisory services. He alleged too that the wife had in those later years of the marriage embarked on extra-marital affairs that compromised her homemaking and her care for the child.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_25"></a>25 In my judgment, this marriage was substantially a single-income marriage with the husband as the breadwinner and the wife as the homemaker. Even if the wife had started work as a financial advisor at the time of the divorce, that period of work was insignificant in the context of the nine-year marriage. The approach to the division of matrimonial assets in single-income marriages as set out in <em>TNL v TNK</em> and <em>BOR v BOS</em> was thus the appropriate one to take. Thereunder, the weight to be ascribed to indirect contributions would be proportionate to the length of the marriage. Hence, the final ratios of division ranged from 50:50 (in long single-income marriages of 25–35 years’ duration) to 75:25 in favour of the breadwinner (in shorter single-income marriages of 10–15 years’ duration). I reproduced the observations in <em>BOR</em> at [111]–[113].</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">111 … In <em>TNL v TNK</em>, this court observed that the trend in long single-income marriages had tended towards an equal division of matrimonial assets, but different considerations may attach to short single-income marriages (at [48]). To give some context to the terms “long” and “short”, <em>TNL v TNK</em> itself involved a marriage of some 35-years. The cases which the court referred to as relevant precedents involved marriages of between 26 to 30 years.</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">112 The marriage in the present case lasted about 11 and a half years, much shorter than the examples which the court discussed in <em>TNL v TNK</em>. Different considerations apply to such mid-length marriages. As we stated in <em>ANJ v ANK</em> at [27] (albeit in the context of discussing the structured approach), as a general rule, the longer the marriage, the more weight is given to the parties’ indirect contributions. Conversely, the shorter the marriage, the less weight will be ascribed to indirect contributions.</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">113 We find that the precedents are generally consistent with this principle. Thus, in <em>ATT v ATS</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/[2012] 2 SLR 0859.xml')">[2012] 2 SLR 859</a> at [18], we observed that the trend in “moderately lengthy marriages” was towards awarding the homemaker wife about 35% to 40% of the matrimonial assets. It would appear from the examples discussed that what was meant by “moderately lengthy” was a period in the range of around 15–18 years. For marriages of shorter duration (around 10–15 years), the trend appears to be towards awarding the non-income earning party about 25% to 35% of the matrimonial pool. Thus in <em>UGG v UGH (m.w.)</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/20908-SSP.xml')">[2017] SGHCF 25</a>, which involved a marriage of 12 and a half years, a Wife who had made minimal direct financial contributions was awarded 31.35% of the pool of matrimonial assets. In <em>ABX v ABY and others</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/[2014] 2 SLR 0969.xml')">[2014] 2 SLR 969</a>, which involved a marriage of nine years, the homemaker wife was awarded 25% of the pool of the matrimonial assets.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_26"></a>26 Here, the marriage was a short one of only nine years. For most of it, the husband had been the breadwinner while the wife had been the primary caregiver for the child. Yet the husband had, over and above his breadwinning, made significant indirect contributions to the family especially in the later years of the marriage. In the words of the wife, “Overall, the [husband] had indeed been a supportive spouse during those years prior to the Divorce Proceedings, for which I am grateful and I fully acknowledge”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_7" id="Ftn_7_1"><sup>[note: 7]</sup></a></span> By contrast, as the wife recorded in her diary, she sent text messages to her male companion(s) “all the time”<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_8" id="Ftn_8_1"><sup>[note: 8]</sup></a></span> and “g[a]ve up my time with my son” for those companion(s).<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_9" id="Ftn_9_1"><sup>[note: 9]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_27"></a>27 To be clear, I made no finding on the allegation that the wife had embarked upon extra-marital affairs. The grounds of this divorce were that the behaviour of each spouse had made it unreasonable to expect the other to continue to live with him or her (see [6] above). It was thus unnecessary to make any finding on extra-marital affairs here. The diary entries of the wife were relevant only insofar as they showed the time and energy that the wife had spent other than on her role as a full-time homemaker. Still, those expenditures of time and energy were extensive and would have distracted the wife from her homemaking duties. Taking account too that this marriage spanned only nine years, the indirect contributions of the wife were at the lower end of that of homemakers in single-income marriages of 10–15 years’ duration as set out in <em>BOR</em> (see [25] above). A just and equitable division of the matrimonial assets was thus 75% to the husband and 25% to the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Child custody, care and control, and access</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_28"></a>28 The spouses had since December 2022 agreed to share the custody of the child. They had also agreed to jointly make all applications for “Citizenship, Permanent Residency, Long Term Visa and/or any other immigration-related documents (save for travel visas) in any other jurisdiction on behalf of the Child” (see [5] above). I thus made no further order on the custody of the child.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-2">Care and control</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_29"></a>29 Each spouse sought the sole care and control of the child for the immediate future, even as the wife suggested that they could share the care and control of the child when the child was older. The wife submitted that she had been the primary caregiver for the child, particularly in the years after the child was born and in the months after the breakdown of the marriage. The husband agreed that the wife had been the primary caregiver for the child after the child was born but submitted that he had become the primary caregiver in the final years of the marriage when the wife was focused on embarking on a financial advisory career. He added that the fact that the wife was the primary caregiver for the child after the breakdown of the marriage should be disregarded because that was a <em>status quo</em> that the wife had engineered by removing the child from his care and depriving him of access to the child thereafter.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_30"></a>30 In my view, each spouse had played an active role in the upbringing of the child, and the continued involvement of both parents in the care of the child conduced to the best interests of the child. Nevertheless, the spouses were adamant that an order of shared care and control would have been unworkable in the immediate future due to the animosity between them, and I saw no reason to disagree with this position. Hence, the interests of the child were best served by placing the child in the care and control of the parent that would best promote the co-parenting of the child. As the Court of Appeal observed in <em>TSF v TSE</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/22417-SSP.xml')">[2018] 2 SLR 833</a> at [82], “it is in a child’s best interests post-divorce for him to maintain a good relationship with both his parents.” Accordingly, “[t]he court, in deciding which parent to award care and control to, therefore generally takes into account the extent to which the prospective carer will maintain and facilitate the child’s relationship with the other parent.”</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_31"></a>31 At the outset, I placed little weight on the <em>status quo</em> that had arisen following the breakdown of the marriage, where the wife had been the primary if not the exclusive caregiver for the child. This was an artificial situation where the husband had been substantially excluded from the care for the child even as he lived in the same residential development as the child. At all times, the husband had been ready and willing to care for the child and would have cared for the child had he been permitted to do so. As the Family Court held in <em>UGO v UGR</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/20965-SSP.xml')">[2017] SGFC 125</a> at [46], the significance of continuity of care in deciding the care and control of a child was diminished when the <em>de facto</em> non-care parent had been deprived of the opportunity to care for the child, especially when that <em>status quo</em> had been unilaterally created by the <em>de facto</em> care parent.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_32"></a>32 On the evidence, placing the child in the care and control of the husband would conduce to the co-parenting that promoted the best interests of the child. Even as the wife had cared for the child, she was prone to emotional instability that had hurt the child. In her diary, she lamented: “It’s getting harder to control my frustrations on long days and especially when I’m tired”, “I find myself saying certain things which I know aren’t good for him”, “I need to really ensure that I control my temper … The damage done to his self-esteem just ain’t worth it”, and “Maybe there is something wrong with me after all”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_10" id="Ftn_10_1"><sup>[note: 10]</sup></a></span> These laments corroborated the claims of the husband that the wife would, when frustrated, taunt, scream, and hit child. These laments were also not inconsistent with the claims of the husband that the wife would make “racist, xenophobic and other insensitive remarks” about the Romanian heritage of the husband in front of the child that were “harmful for the Child’s esteem and identity since he is half-Romanian himself”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_11" id="Ftn_11_1"><sup>[note: 11]</sup></a></span> The husband deposed, and wife did not deny, that she would call him a “gypsy”<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_12" id="Ftn_12_1"><sup>[note: 12]</sup></a></span> and a “foreigner” who should “go back home”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_13" id="Ftn_13_1"><sup>[note: 13]</sup></a></span> The text messages exchanged between the husband and the wife showed just as much. As much as the laments of the wife about her behaviour revealed her recognition of its adverse impact on the child, it was hardly reassuring for the purpose of care and control that she took few steps beyond such lamenting to improve her management of her emotions.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_33"></a>33 Further, the male companionship that the wife enjoyed alongside her homemaking compromised her time with and care of the child. As she diarised, she communicated with her male companions “all the time”, left the home to meet them “impromptu”, and even had to “give up my time with my son” for them.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_14" id="Ftn_14_1"><sup>[note: 14]</sup></a></span></p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">He is back in SG today.</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">And texted me at 9am. 9.30am to be precise. Turns out that he wanted to meet me today! omg. I was definitely not expecting to meet him today, and for sure not expecting him to want to meet me either! I think he must really miss me gosh. :) :) :)</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">He was worried he would be tired and hence didn’t dare to commit, and wanted to surprise me instead.</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">(Night time now)</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">Found out why it was so impromptu that he wanted to meet – he got home and could not sleep. And his requests for me to <em>meet him and give up my time with my son</em> was just because he could not sleep due to jet lag. How disappointing. I had expected better and looks like I will be his social escort and pretend to be happy :)</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">[Emphasis added]</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_34"></a>34 Most worryingly, the wife appeared to have since July 2023 unilaterally removed the child from the care of the husband and neglected to facilitate the co-parenting that would have been in the best interests of the child. Still, she claimed that she had encouraged the child to spend time with the husband. She clarified that the husband had from July to September 2023 accompanied the child to and/or from school three to five times each week and spent “reasonable amount of time” with the child “for breakfast, showering, dinner, showering and settling down”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_15" id="Ftn_15_1"><sup>[note: 15]</sup></a></span> She added that despite her differences with the husband, she “kept a limited channel open with the Husband via Whats[A]pp for the sake of [the child]” by “unblock[ing] the Husband at specific times of the day to allow for communication on essential matters”.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_16" id="Ftn_16_1"><sup>[note: 16]</sup></a></span> But these clarifications showed that the child had scarce opportunity to spend time with the husband for meaningful durations. These clarifications showed too that the wife had, after seizing the <em>de facto</em> care and control of the child, insisted on parenting the child on only her terms and was unamenable to co-parenting the child with the husband.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_35"></a>35 In comparison, the husband had despite his differences with the wife taken steps to ameliorate those differences and to promote the bond between the child and the wife. After discovering the time and energy that the wife had spent on male companionship outside the marriage, the husband went for therapy to manage his emotions and learn to co-parent the child despite the breakdown in the marital relationship.<span class="FootnoteRef"><a href="#Ftn_17" id="Ftn_17_1"><sup>[note: 17]</sup></a></span> He maintained good terms with the relatives of the wife and encouraged the child to meet with them. Even after the wife removed the child from the matrimonial home in July 2023, he worked with the wife to ensure that the child was fed, washed, and clothed. The wife painted these interactions as her facilitation of access between the husband and the child. Yet these interactions were equally the product of the husband adjusting his schedule and working around the schedule of the wife to ensure that the needs of the child were not compromised, especially when the work and other commitments of the wife took her away from the child.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_36"></a>36 In <em>ABW v ABV</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/SLR/[2014] 2 SLR 0769.xml')">[2014] 2 SLR 769</a>, Judith Prakash J (as she then was) observed: “switching care and control is a remedy that can be adopted if a judge finds that the parent having care and control has been either deliberately or unconsciously interfering with the bond between the child and the other parent.” These observations were apposite here, where the <em>status quo</em> was the wife as the <em>de facto</em> care parent of the child. This <em>status quo</em> complicated the co-parenting of the child by interfering with the bond between the child and the husband. Placing the child in the care and control of the husband, who was a capable parent that placed the interests of the child before his differences with the wife, would facilitate the co-parenting that conduced to the welfare of the child.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_37"></a>37 I was confident that any ensuing disruption to the <em>status quo</em> here would not prejudice the child for three reasons. First, the duration of the <em>status quo</em> was short: less than a year had elapsed since July 2023. Second, the husband had been immersed in the care of the child up until July 2023 and accompanied the child to and/or from school and over “breakfast, showering, dinner, showering and settling down” up until September 2023. Third, the husband had a viable plan to care for the child from day to day: his flexibility in his job enabled him to take care of the child when the child was not at school while his proposal to rent an apartment with multiple bedrooms near the child’s school would provide the child with a dedicated bedroom, study area, and play area. This would be more conducive for the child, who was a soon-to-be teenager, than sharing a room in an apartment with the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_38"></a>38 I thus placed the child in the sole care and control of the husband.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-2">Access</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_39"></a>39 To preserve the relationship between the wife and the child, I made generous orders for her access to the child. These orders were as follow:</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_39-p2_a"></a>(a) The wife shall have access to the child on one day each weekend, and this day of access will alternate between Saturdays and Sundays;</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_39-p2_b"></a>(b) The wife shall have access to the child on half of the child’s school holidays;</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_39-p2_c"></a>(c) The wife shall have access to the child on all gazetted public holidays from 0930hrs to 2000hrs, other than on public holidays falling within the husband’s share of the school holidays; and</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_39-p2_d"></a>(d) The wife shall have access to the child on the child’s birthday on every alternate year.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_40"></a>40 To facilitate these access orders, I ordered the wife to pick the child up from and drop the child off at the residence of the husband for each access session. For the avoidance of doubt, I specified that the wife was free to travel with the child during her access sessions during the child’s school holidays. When the wife had communicated her travel plans to the husband, the husband was to provide the passport of the child to the wife seven days in advance of the departure date and the wife was to return the passport of the child to the husband three days after the return date.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_41"></a>41 To allow each parent to bond with the child when he or she did not have the physical care of the child, I also granted each parent virtual access to the child as follow:</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_41-p2_a"></a>(a) The wife shall have virtual access to the child three times each week, with the husband to facilitate such access; and</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_41-p2_b"></a>(b) The husband shall have virtual access to the child three times each week during the wife’s half of the school holidays, with the wife to facilitate such access.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_42"></a>42 In my view, these orders would grant the wife the space to adjust to her new job as a financial advisor and work on managing her emotions without the responsibility of caring for the child from day to day. To that end, the fact that she had acknowledged that her expressions of frustration at the child had adversely impacted the child (see [32] above) was a good start. After she had settled into her new role as a financial advisor and gained the tools to manage her emotions are frustrations, it was open to her to apply for a variation of these care and control and/or access orders.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Maintenance</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_43"></a>43 The wife did not seek any order of maintenance for herself. I therefore declined to order the husband to maintain the wife.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_44"></a>44 Given my decision to place the child in the sole care and control of the husband, I was not inclined to make any order of maintenance in respect of the child. The income of the husband dwarfed that of the wife. Based on their latest Notices of Assessment, the husband earned $174,900 per annum (or $14,575 per month) while the wife earned $34,956 per annum (or $2,913 per month). The husband was well able to maintain the child on his own. It was neither just nor equitable to order the wife to maintain the child, especially when she was finding her feet in her new job.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Conclusion</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_45"></a>45 Speaking extra-judicially, Justice Teh Hwee Hwee, Presiding Judge, Family Justice Courts, recently reiterated that parents working together, and not the court, were the best persons to make decisions and bear responsibility for their child (see “From Confrontation to Collaboration: A Decade in Transforming The Family Justice Paradigm”, Keynote Address and CJ Koh Lecture 2024 delivered at Family Conference 2024 (3 September 2024) at paragraphs 27–28):</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">The centrality of parenting obligations was emphasised in <em>CVC v CVB</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/30092-SSP.xml')">[2023] SGHC(A) 28</a>. Citing s 46(1) of the Women’s Charter, the court observed that “parental responsibility [was] one of the most fundamental obligations of a married couple”. The corollary of this is that the court must naturally be the last resort for the resolution of parenting matters. As the Appellate Division of the High Court recently emphasised, “[i]nstead of litigating in the courts for the variation of orders, parents should endeavour to make adjustments by agreement to the care and access orders where necessary… While the court remains accessible to parties who require a resolution to disputes that they are unable to resolve despite their best efforts, we stress that this course of action should be the last resort”</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">Parents must therefore intentionally endeavour to make parenting decisions for themselves instead of fighting it out in court. They must work on reducing conflict instead of expending energy and resources to disparage each other. A divorce does not mark the end of one’s parenting obligations. After all, <em>parents know their child best and are the most suitable persons to make decisions and bear responsibility for their child. The court is no substitute for a child’s parent, and the task of making decisions for a child should therefore be undertaken by the parents working together, rather than by the force of a court order.</em></p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">[Emphasis added]</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_46"></a>46 Even as I prescribed detailed care and access orders to give the spouses clarity on their rights and obligations after the divorce, I emphasise that they are always welcome to agree to different care or access arrangements for the child, just as they had agreed to share the custody of the child. Any such amicable agreement would conduce to the best interests of the child more than any formal order of court.</p> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_1_1" id="Ftn_1">[note: 1]</a></sup>See Signed Consent Order dated 2/12/2022</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_2_1" id="Ftn_2">[note: 2]</a></sup>Aunt’s Affidavit at p 25</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_3_1" id="Ftn_3">[note: 3]</a></sup>Aunt’s Affidavit at [12]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_4_1" id="Ftn_4">[note: 4]</a></sup>Aunt’s Affidavit at p 23</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_5_1" id="Ftn_5">[note: 5]</a></sup>Aunt’s Affidavit at [12]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_6_1" id="Ftn_6">[note: 6]</a></sup>W’s Subs at [17]–[18]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_7_1" id="Ftn_7">[note: 7]</a></sup>2WAOM at [28(g)]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_8_1" id="Ftn_8">[note: 8]</a></sup>2HAOM562–563</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_9_1" id="Ftn_9">[note: 9]</a></sup>2HAOM565</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_10_1" id="Ftn_10">[note: 10]</a></sup>2HAOM551–567</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_11_1" id="Ftn_11">[note: 11]</a></sup>H’s Subs at [44]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_12_1" id="Ftn_12">[note: 12]</a></sup>1HAOM717–720</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_13_1" id="Ftn_13">[note: 13]</a></sup>1HAOM at [218]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_14_1" id="Ftn_14">[note: 14]</a></sup>2HAOM565</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_15_1" id="Ftn_15">[note: 15]</a></sup>W’s Subs at [38(d)]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_16_1" id="Ftn_16">[note: 16]</a></sup>W’s Subs at [38(e)]</p><p class="Footnote"><sup><a href="#Ftn_17_1" id="Ftn_17">[note: 17]</a></sup>4HAOM at [11]–[12]</p></div></content></root>	1832

Links from other tables

1 row from _item in fc_judgments_version